Category: MMOs

Battle Chair Design – Revision 1

Front View

When used for gaming, laptops tend to over heat, and eventually they destroy their video cards. My Alienware m15x laptop, while it seems to have good cooling, has had 4 new video cards in the last 3 years. I have wanted to use a desktop for gaming, but prefer to do most of my playing from the comfort of my recliner. Here is the start of an idea to accomplish that. Missing from the renderings are the arm that holds the monitor from the case to the right of the recliner to the monitor in front of me. As  you can see the computer case is very large. I’ve provided for a UPS in the cabinet since in my area all my computers require a UPS due to frequent power glitches that would cause an unprotected computer to reboot. Click on pictures for larger views. Continue reading “Battle Chair Design – Revision 1”

Wow – Realm Design Has Problems

World of Warcraft

I have recently been playing World of Warcraft. While the game has much to recommend it, especially since they have a trial or starter edition that is free-to-play [up to level 20], it has a serious problem with its design of “realms” or “shards” as some games call it.

“Shards” or “Realms” of course is the name used  for the “instances” of the server that are required to support very large numbers of players. These games are MMO – Massively Multi-Player – and “Persistent” which means that they do not place players in private “instances” of the game as they play. But it is not possible to have hundreds of thousands of players all playing in the same server at the time. How is the game going to solve the problem when thousands of players show up in the same town at the same time for a party or just to hang out on a Saturday night?

Well the point is that World of Warcraft solves this problem very badly. There are better solutions out there. Let’s look at the Wow solution and then look at some other games and see much better solutions. Continue reading “Wow – Realm Design Has Problems”

TomTom – Wow Addon for Mapping

World of Warcraft has a free to play starter edition with restrictions. Some are:

  • No Trading. They are preventing trial accounts from being used as farmers apparently.
  • Can’t invite players to Groups [Parties].
  • Can’t whisper unless they are a friend.
  • Can’t use mailbox. Again the farming problem.
  • Not all races are available.
  • Characters are capped at level 20 out of 85.

But you can have up to 10 characters per account so you can explore a lot of the world and figure out how things work.

Add Ons EcoSystem

World of Warcraft has a huge ecosystem of AddOns that add and change functions of the program. I needed a way to see my coordinates on the map to match up with quest descriptions. There are a ton of map addons so I chose a simple one. You can find TomTom here and comment on it here.

Compass without TomTom
Compass with TomTom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the compass of Wow without TomTom – Where Am I? With TomTom no problem I get the coords at the bottom. Continue reading “TomTom – Wow Addon for Mapping”

Guild Wars – Mercenaries Build Powerful Teams

Mercenary Party

Guild Wars recently added “Mercenaries” which are ways to add the other players in your account to your list of heroes – or players that you control as part of your team. Heroes were added with the “Nightfall” expansion and at that time were characters that you gained by progressing in the game. Nightfall had about a dozen heroes, and the “Eye of the North” expansion added many more heroes to this list, but still with the idea that you gained heroes by doing quests.

Mercenaries allows you to build your own heroes in two ways:

  1. Use the other level 20 PVP or PVE characters in your account as heroes.
  2. Create a PVP character in your account, use it as a hero, and then delete it.

Continue reading “Guild Wars – Mercenaries Build Powerful Teams”

AION Private Server

AION Logo

I have been watching the AION game for some time, and since it was released in this country by NCSoft, I had hoped that they would use the same model as they do with Guild Wars, which is purchase followed by FTP [no subscription]. Well they apparently are greedy, and have gone with the WoW model, which is Pay for the game and then pay $15 / month. Sorry, but I’m not interested in this model.

However, I have found a FTP Private server. Oddly enough. GameZ AION is a private server with enhanced EXP, Currency and Drop rates.

Continue reading “AION Private Server”

Private Gaming Servers

Elite Dekaron

I’ve recently discovered the culture of Private Game Servers for popular MMO and other games where the rules are broken to make the game experience different. Usually the EXP, loot and currency drop rates are multiplied by 200 – 1000x to make the game less of a “Grind”. Many Asian MMOs are one awful grind, meaning it takes hours or days to level up or collect the loot or currency you need by killing monsters. A couple of years ago I played 2Moons [Dekaron] for almost a year and never got above level 85.

On a private server for Dekaron I now have 7 characters above level 170.

Continue reading “Private Gaming Servers”

2Moons Accounts Resurrected at GameHi

Dekaron at GameHi

Remember when 2Moons shutdown with no notice?

Well, it turns out that the accounts were saved. You can transfer the characters to new accounts at GameHi. So they apparently saved the database, and now Dekaron [and the other game] at GameHi, are Free to Play. Surprise Surprise. At the time that 2Moons was released, I understood that Dekaron – which was popular in Korea – was a subscription game, which is why Acclaim’s FTP version was IP checked for US only IP addresses.

Continue reading “2Moons Accounts Resurrected at GameHi”

Dekaron – Hints and Research

Elite Dekaron

Here’re a few things I’ve found out while playing Elite Dekaron.

The EXP factor varies from place to place. For example, in Frozen Forest lvl 40 it appears to be 60X, but in Heiharp lvl 25 it appears to be 40x. The DIL factor varies as well. To calculate the rate, watch the EXP and DIL drop for a monster and then do the math based on a Wiki like the 2Moons wiki which has a very nice Monster Detail section. Here’s the section for Heiharp.

Continue reading “Dekaron – Hints and Research”